The Prodigal Prince's Seduction / The Heir's Scandalous Affair: The Prodigal Prince's Seduction

The surge of hope on her face made him fist his hands in his pockets, emphasizing his—problem. It was either that or snatch them out and pounce on her. “I mean, if you’re still interested, I’ll take that million-dollar check.”

“If?” She coughed. Her eyes tore from his, slammed around, the dazed excitement in them tingling through him on a path that connected his fingertips to his scalp, his loins to his toes. Her gaze settled at her feet. “There it is.” She dropped down in a crouch, pooling her flowing taffeta skirt on the ground, making her look like a gigantic flower as she retrieved the matching evening bag. She jerked back up, not lingering to look up at him from that position, to milk it for all the sensual promise it could yield.

She didn’t need any of that. She needed only to breathe—to be—to exercise maximum effect on him. But it pleased him beyond measure that she didn’t operate that way.

She fumbled with her bag, produced her checkbook. He watched as she scribbled furiously with even, beautiful print. Then she tore out the check, extended it to him. “Fill in the beneficiary.”

He took it, folded and placed it in his outer pocket before he reached into his inner one, produced his own checkbook and pen.

In a minute he tore a check out, handed it to her. “I’m bidding two million. Add to that whatever amount you see fit, fill in the total and make it out to whomever you like.”

Her movement to take the check felt like a reflex. She didn’t look at it, remained gaping at him. “What’s this for?”

“The two million is my bid for the time we’ve had together so far. The amount you’ll specify is for the rest of the evening.”

“The whole evening?”

“And the night.”

“The night?”

Durante’s lips twitched. Her squeaks would have amused him if they weren’t pouring fuel on his inflamed senses. She really hadn’t thought it a possibility he’d offer this. “If you wish it.”

Her blush intensified until she seemed to smolder in the night. And he saw it in his mind’s eye in high-definition clarity, himself carrying her to the nearest flat surface to ravish her for that hour she’d bid on, before sweeping her away from the world to do so again for several nights on end.

It was all so surreal he felt he was dreaming it. Yet it was so real it abraded him with its intensity and immediacy. He’d never experienced such a state of distressed arousal. And for him to be in this condition just by looking, imagining…Unbelievable.

At last she spluttered, “Uh…isn’t this a bit…you know…?”

He inclined his head. “Too fast? Too soon? You think so?”

A moan-giggle escaped her, another blow to his restraint. “If you think I can think right now, think again.”

“Exactly. This isn’t about thinking. This is about feeling. About knowing. I know what you make me feel. You made me feel it from the first moment. I wanted more than an hour with you. I want this night, bellissima, and as many more as you’ll give me.”

“That’s assuming you’ll want more nights after the first…” Her face scrunched into a wince. “Okay, excuse me as I give swallowing my tongue a serious shot.”

“With me around to do it? What a waste that would be. And why would you even want to try?”

“Because it sounded as if I was agreeing to share this night with you and was trying to make sure it wouldn’t be the one and only.”

Every word out of her mouth…He pressed the heel of his palm to his breastbone, as if that would quell the itching behind it. “And you didn’t mean that?”

“God, no, I-I…” She threw both hands over her face, before looking up at him, helplessness and accusation filling her expression. “It’s your fault. Exposure to you is turning my gray matter into day-old milkshake.”

A laugh tore out of him, drove his head back with the force of its unexpectedness and power. “Turnabout is fair play. Although you turn mine into the boiling version.” He reduced the distance between them another step, testing his stamina, thrilling to the torture of balancing on the edge of loss of control. “And I will want more nights. As many as I can have. I hope you won’t hold back to observe an ‘appropriate’ period before indulging in intimacy. I want nothing more than to end this night with you in my arms, in my bed.”

She melted back against her car. “And I want nothing more than to end this night in both.”

Gabrielle watched Durante’s eyes flare at her admission, knew he’d reach for her. She had to say the rest now. Now.

“But I can’t.”

The flare subsided, ice putting out the blue-hot flames.

Something twisted beneath her ribs. She couldn’t bear to see disappointment replacing exhilaration in his eyes.

She hurtled on. “Believe it or not, I did approach you with business and only business in mind.”

Relief swamped her when his eyes simmered again. “I believe you. But it ceased to be business the moment you laid eyes on me.”

She didn’t even think of denying the fact. “Yes.” She still had to qualify it. “But I can’t afford to let it be that way—”

He cut across her unsteady words. “You can’t afford to let it be any other way. Business will be taken care of in due time. But I’m not postponing this for anything else’s sake.”

“But what is this?”

“Something unknown to either of us, something unprecedented. And you know it as well as I do.”

Gabrielle stared at him. He kept stunning her. But what most amazed her was that she picked up no malice from him, that malignant triumph most men transmitted when women made the mistake of not only falling for them, but admitting it, too.

Not him. She felt he was above pettiness and double standards. This was also no line that he gave every desirable woman he met. In fact, his ruthlessness likely originated from his never instigating the pursuit. He was renowned for his detachment.

There was nothing detached about him now. She just knew he was being swept along the same unstoppable current as she was.

That didn’t mean she could let herself be swept. There was far more at stake than the elapsing of “an appropriate period before indulging in intimacies.” And not only couldn’t she tell him what, but that this was happening at all made her feel she’d fallen flat on her face into someone else’s life. Men like him—and there were no men like him—didn’t appear in hers.

She looked up at him, at once pleading for him to understand her chaos and afraid he’d shimmer and disappear. “Whatever this unknown and unprecedented thing is, and no matter how I feel about it or how right it feels to feel this way, I’m still totally weirded out by the detour everything has taken. Hours ago I didn’t dream…”

“…you’d see me and the world would cease to matter.”

His confidence sent her explanations scattering. “Oh, quit making it harder for me to make sense. The world might have ceased to matter, but it didn’t cease to exist. I had this proposal memorized and now I barely remember what it was all about.”

“I barely remember why I came here tonight, too. I don’t care about anything now beyond you.”

“Maybe if you hear my proposal, you’ll change your mind.”

“I won’t. Not even if you’re coming to me with the patent for an eternal-youth or super-power serum.”

“Actually, I was thinking along opposite lines. That you’d be so opposed to my offer, you’d drop me.”

“So it’s something you think I’m liable to turn down flat? Is that why you were trying to sweeten me with the hundred grand? Is there something dark and controversial about you, mia ragazzaccia?”

The way he said “my bad girl” quickened her melting rate. “Oh, I wish. Okay, really, I don’t. I’m pretty grateful there’s nothing so…interesting about me. I’m just—”

“The woman I want to know everything about. And to that end, I want to conduct an experiment.”

She blinked. “An experiment?” She stopped. “God, I keep repeating things. I might start asking for crackers next.” His smile widened, blinding her with a flash of charisma. She groaned. “So, what’s this experiment? What are you out to prove?”